Eye on Washington – March 16, 2017

The House Budget Committee’s markup of the American Health Care Act has begun. A livestream of the markup is available here.

Text of the reconciliation bill, which combines the portions of the American Health Care Act approved by the Energy and Commerce and Ways and Means Committees last week, is available here.

Today, the Committee will consider reporting the bill to the full House, through the Rules Committee. While amendments cannot be offered during this markup, we anticipate many members will make statements. In addition, the Committee may consider motions for recommendations to be presented to the House Rules Committee, in advance of the legislation moving to the House floor.

Earlier this week, Indiana health care consultant Seema Verma was confirmed by a Senate panel as administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), a $1 trillion agency that oversees health insurance programs for more than 130 million people. Here’s a look at a recent letter sent to State Governors from Verma and HHS secretary, Tom Price.

Wyden Introduces the C-THRU Act

Yesterday, March 15th, Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-OR) introduced the Creating Transparency to Have Drug Rebates Unlocked (C-THRU) Act , legislation that would require Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) to disclose the aggregate amount of rebates they receive from pharmaceutical companies, and what proportion of those rebates go to Americans in Medicare. These disclosures would be publically available on CMS’s website.

After two years of public reporting, the legislation would then require a minimum percentage of rebates and discount to be passed from a PBM to a health plan, which will lower premiums or other cost-sharing amounts paid by patients. The bill would require cost-sharing for Part D enrollees to be based off the negotiated price of the drug as agreed to by the drug manufacturer and PBM so that Part D enrollees fully benefit from discounts and rebates provided by drug manufactures.

A one-page summary of the bill can be found here. Legislative text can be found here.